Security Week in Review: February 18, 2011

Jeff here, bringing you a bit of overview and analysis of the trending security news from this week and links to some blogs, papers and media that you might have missed, but shouldn’t. Lots of grist for the mill this week because of RSA Conference 2011.

Trending Security News

Collective Defense and Internet Health. Microsoft’s call for industry, government and individuals to work together to get ahead of the curve on Cyber Security got a lot of good discussion this week – see article links below.

HBGary and Anonymous. Many blogs and news articles this week concerning HBGary, their subsidiary, and the non-group of attackers known as Anonymous. Some of the highlights:

Cyberwar – words or reality? Whereever you stand on this debate, it is getting a lot of discussion. As several senior security experts said this week, “words matter.” War enables a level of response that goes beyond criminal threats or espionage, so the debate rages on how exactly cyberwar should be defined.

The Cybersecurity Freedom Act of 2011. This new bill, “The Cybersecurity Freedom Act of 2011”, is nearly identical to the previously proposed legislation with two exceptions. First, the bill now explicitly states that the president cannot shut down the Internet. Senator Collins noted in her remarks that this change was a direct result of President Mubarak’s actions in Egypt. The second change permits owners of assets deemed by the federal government to be critical infrastructure to appeal that decision in a federal court. Critical infrastructure is subject to additional Department of Homeland Security regulations.

About the Author

Principal Cybersecurity Strategist

Jeff Jones a 27-year security industry professional that has spent the last decade at Microsoft working with enterprise CSOs and Microsoft's internal teams to drive practical and measurable security improvements into Microsoft products and services. Additionally, Jeff analyzes vulnerability trends Read more &raquo